PLATT, James (1823-1857), of Hartford House, Oldham, Lancs. and Ashway Gap, Saddleworth, Yorks.

At the time of his election as Liberal MP for Oldham in 1857, James Platt was a partner in ‘the largest machine-making concern in the world’, Platt Bros. & Co., supplying both domestic and overseas markets.1Manchester Examiner and Times, 12 Sept. 1857. Platt’s grandfather, John, a prosperous machine maker in Dobcross, had been followed into business by Platt’s father, Henry, who moved to Oldham in 1821 to manufacture machinery for the rapidly expanding cotton textile industry, forging a partnership with Elijah Hibbert the following year. Platt, whose father had died in 1842, joined his older brother John as a partner in the firm in 1845 after the death of his oldest brother Joseph. The brothers bought out the Hibbert family interest in 1854, Elijah Hibbert having died in 1846. James Platt’s ‘supreme engineering and marketing ability’ helped the enterprise to expand and flourish.2D. Farnie, ‘The Platt family’, Oxford DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]; R. Eastham, Platts. Textile Machinery Makers. Civic Leaders in Oldham. Country Squires in North Wales (1994), 9. His interest in the practical side of the business was demonstrated by his application for a patent for brick-making apparatus in 1855, and by his presence on the committee of the Manchester-based ‘Association for preventing steam boiler explosions and for effecting economy in the raising and use of steam’.3The Mechanics’ Magazine (July-Dec 1855), lxiii, 501; R. Armstrong, A rudimentary treatise on steam boilers: their construction and practical management (4th edn., 1862), 137, 143. In the early 1850s James and John Platt jointly purchased a country estate at Ashway Gap, Saddleworth.4Eastham, Platts, 25.

Platt and his brother John took a leading role in the campaign for Oldham to be incorporated as a municipal borough, guaranteeing £100 towards the costs of the campaign.5H. Bateson, A history of Oldham (1949), 236. When their efforts bore fruit in 1849, Platt was elected to Oldham’s first town council, and although he was defeated in 1852, he secured re-election in 1853 and again in 1856, following which he was appointed as an alderman.6Manchester Examiner and Times, 1 Dec. 1849, 9 Apr. 1853, 5 Oct. 1853, 25 Oct. 1856, 15 Nov. 1856. He ‘laboured hard’ to secure the council’s purchase of Oldham’s Gas and Waterworks Company.7Manchester Examiner and Times, 9 Apr. 1853. He and his brother subscribed £100 to the funds of the Anti-Corn Law League in 1846, and he served as a steward at the League’s banquet in Manchester to celebrate the corn laws’ final repeal in 1849.8Manchester Times and Gazette, 24 Jan. 1846, 3 Feb. 1849. He regularly spoke on local Liberal platforms, such as at the 1851 meeting which praised Palmerston’s actions in facilitating the liberation of Kossuth.9Manchester Examiner and Times, 8 Nov. 1851. Although the Platts had been associated with the Peace Society in 1853, they became firm supporters of the Crimean War, and James Platt published a pamphlet, Observations on the Policy of the Czar, which was sold at half price to working men.10J. Foster, Class struggle and the industrial revolution (1974), 239. Platt was praised for his ‘munificence and open-handed generosity’ as a local benefactor, and took a particular interest in educational causes, believing that ‘ignorance is… the parent and perpetuation of error and misery’.11Manchester Examiner and Times, 5 Sept. 1857; speech by Platt at Oldham Lyceum 1850, cited in Foster, Class struggle, 189. From 1848 until his death he served as president of the Oldham Lyceum (founded in 1840 as a mutual improvement society for working men), and organised an exhibition which raised over £2,000 towards the costs of a new building in 1854.12Eastham, Platts, 22; W. Ogwen Williams, ‘The Platts of Oldham: a chapter in the history of a Caernarvonshire parish’, Trans. Caern. Historical Society, 18 (1957), 81; Manchester Times, 18 Nov. 1854. The Platts also established a generously-stocked library and newsroom for their workforce.13Eastham, Platts, 17.

Platt contested Oldham in 1857 as the running mate of William Johnson Fox, with John Morgan Cobbett as a rival radical candidate. (In 1856, a deputation from Fox’s committee had approached John and James Platt as possible candidates; while John declined, James accepted.14Morning Chronicle, 25 Apr. 1856.) During the contest, Platt emphasised his local credentials, and expressed support for the ballot, shorter parliaments, redistribution of seats, universal suffrage (in combination with the extension of education), disestablishment and the admission of Jews to Parliament.15Manchester Examiner and Times, 28 Mar. 1857. When it became apparent during the course of the poll that Platt would take the second seat ahead of Fox, he mooted retiring in Fox’s favour, but ‘through some mismanagement’, his effort to withdraw from the contest came too late, and he was elected.16Manchester Examiner and Times, 4 Apr. 1857; Daily News, 29 Aug. 1857.

In the Commons, Platt’s interventions in debate reflected his concern for local interests, speaking on the desirability of promoting art in order to benefit manufacturing (he attended the 1857 annual dinner of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce), and on the need for public parks in the north of England.17Hansard, 29 June 1857, vol. 146, cc.564-601; The Times, 24 June 1857; Hansard, 10 Aug. 1857, vol. 147, cc.1362. On the latter subject, Platt had served in 1846 as joint secretary of an unsuccessful scheme to create a park in Oldham, towards which the Platts had promised £250.18Manchester Times and Gazette, 11 Dec. 1846, 26 Dec. 1846. His involvement with the Cotton Supply Association in Manchester allowed him to speak knowledgeably on the benefits of encouraging railway construction in India, in order to cut the costs of transporting cotton and reduce British dependence on American imports.19The Times, 22 June 1857; Hansard, 17 July 1857, vol. 146, cc.1728-9. He was the second most assiduous attender among Lancashire’s MPs in the 1857 session, voting in 103 out of 162 divisions.20Preston Guardian, 24 Oct. 1857. Outside Parliament, he was among 30 MPs who attended a meeting chaired by J.A. Roebuck to discuss parliamentary reform, and he also gathered with colleagues to consider the Lords’ rejection of the parliamentary oaths bill.21The Times, 27 July 1857, 18 Nov. 1857. According to the Manchester Examiner and Times, Platt ‘was essentially a rising man’, whose opinion was sought by the government, and ‘it was the general feeling in the house that Mr. Platt would one day distinguish himself greatly’.22Manchester Examiner and Times, 12 Sept. 1857.

However, Platt’s untimely death brought a potentially promising parliamentary career to an abrupt end. He was killed in August 1857 while out shooting on the moors at Ashway Gap with his friend, Josiah Radcliffe, mayor of Oldham, who stumbled and accidentally discharged his gun, lodging a bullet in Platt’s leg: ‘the shock was too great for his weakly constitution’.23The Times, 29 Aug. 1857. Oldham mourned the loss of ‘a kind friend, a good neighbour, a beneficent townsman, an honest representative’, and thousands of working men lined the streets for Platt’s funeral, testifying to his popularity among all classes, despite past disputes between the Platts and their workforce, such as that involving the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in 1852.24Manchester Examiner and Times, 12 Sept. 1857; J. Vernon, Politics and the people. A study in English political culture c.1815-1867 (1993), 270; J.B. Jefferys, The story of the engineers (1945), 35-40. He was buried at the new Chadderton cemetery, created by the Burial Board on which he had sat.25Eastham, Platts, 26. His family declined the suggestion of a public memorial, but commemorated him both with a memorial on the moors at Ashway Gap, and with a tablet in Hope Congregational Chapel, when it was rebuilt at their expense in 1865-6.26Manchester Examiner and Times, 17 Oct. 1857; Eastham, Platts, 26; http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/984754; F. O’Dwyer, The architecture of Deane and Woodward (1997), 301. Platt left £137,589.27Farnie, ‘Platt family’. His brother John bought out his widow’s interest in the business, giving her his share in the Ashway Gap estate in part exchange.28Eastham, Platts, 27.